A few weeks ago, while cruising eBay, I came across an early teardrop style Craftsman ¼” drive ratchet that I had never seen before. There was a “buy it now” price and I went for it. What initially caught my eye was its unusual directional selector. While it sort of resembled the well known “V/butterfly/flying V” selector we all know so well, it was different. Instead of having two lobes, it only had one. After I bought the ratchet, I studied the auction photos in detail.
If you’ve been keeping up, maybe you’ve seen the Craftsman Teardrop Type Study. If not check it out in this forum. Anyway, based on the external features of the mystery ratchet, from my perspective it was a mix between the Type 1 and Type 2 ratchets I described in the Cman Teardrop Type Study.
What I noticed was that the raised panels on the ratchet’s handle had rounded ends. That was characteristic of all Type 1 ratchets, both early and late, and early Type 2 ratchets. Further inspection showed a main gear that was finished in black oxide, a later Type 2 feature. All Type 1 and early Type 2 had chrome finished gears. It also looked like the hub on the mystery ratchet’s directional selector was very similar in shape to the hub found on the typical Type 2 selector. What also jumped out at me were the cropped corners of the socket post/stud. That was unusual because to the best of my knowledge, the tops of all Type 1, Type 2 and even Type 3 socket posts are more flat and have smooth, subtle drops at their corners. The more pronounced angular corners didn’t start showing up until Type 4 ratchets made their debut. That becomes important a little later.
The question then became, “What do I have here?” Was it a new Type of Craftsman Teardrop ratchet that I hadn’t seen before? It was certainly an early example and clearly a rarity. Still the mix of Type 1 and Type 2 features and the unusual directional selector had me wondering. With that, once I got the mystery ratchet in hand, I sent a few photos to Dadstools. He’s good at analytics and I figured he’d have some thoughts on it.
We traded several emails and I sent more photos to him. Since the mystery ratchet retained Type 1 and Type 2 features, Dadstools suggested trying the mystery ratchet parts in both Type 1 and Type 2 ratchet bodies. It seemed like a logical idea, so I got out three ¼” drive Cman teardrop ratchets, those being an early Type 1, a late Type 1, and a Type 2. I disassembled all four ratchets, and tried the mystery ratchet parts in the two Type 1 examples and the Type 2 example. The mystery ratchet’s parts fit perfectly and worked flawlessly in both Type 1 ratchets as well as the Type 2 ratchet. Now you might be thinking, “How can that be? The Type 1 directional selector levers point down and the Type 2 selector lever points up. Well, to accommodate both selectors, the pawl was changed as was the back of the selector itself. Essentially, a universal selector was created allowing it to work with both Type 1 and Type 2 ratchets. Check out the photos below. That horizontal slot in the pawl and the mating raised line on the back of the unique directional selector made it easy to install the selector lever either up or down.
So, why do this? Was there some consumer demand for a ratchet with a universal directional selector? Well, like I said earlier, I had been trading emails with Dadstools for a week, and when we had kicked around all the facts, he surmised (correctly I believe) that the mystery ratchet is not some hybrid between Type 1 and Type 2, and not some experimental model, or something used to test the market. His analysis points to the ratchet body as being outfitted with a repair kit designed to service both Type 1 and Type 2 ratchets. When you really take a close look at the parts, particularly at the unique pawl and mating directional selector, it solves the selector pointing down (Type 1) or the selector pointing up (Type 2) problem. Let’s face it, ratchets broke back then, just like now, and Sears needed a repair kit or kits to deal with that problem. This kit seemed to be the answer. Rather than making two kits with different directional selectors, or one kit with two different selectors, the one kit one selector idea seemed to get the job done.
So how do we know when the kit was available? Well, Type 1 and Type 2 ratchets must have existed because the repair kit will service both Types. But here’s the real clue. Remember those cropped socket post corners I mentioned earlier? Well, Dadstools points to the first Cman Teardrop ratchet to feature those cropped corners…. the Type 4, which very likely first appeared during 1965. So, the mystery ratchet is most likely a Type 1 or early Type 2 that’s outfitted with a repair kit. I have no idea if there was a similar 3/8” drive or ½” drive repair kit as well. Unless more examples are discovered, we may never really know.
If this is just a repair kit, I don’t think it was in existence for very long. I’ve never seen another. What I did notice is that the mystery ratchet’s main gear worked just fine with the Type 1 ratchets as well as the Type 2 ratchet. As a matter of fact, all of the repair kit parts were individually interchangeable with any of the Type 1 and Type 2 parts...... except for the pawl and selector. If one were to strip the original pawl in his/her Type 1 or Type 2 ratchet and use the repair kit pawl, then he/she would be forced to also use the repair kit selector. Perhaps main gears were replaced while original pawls and original selectors were reused. It’s hard to say for sure. I guess I’ll keep an eye out for other examples and for Type 1 and Type 2 ratchets with black oxide gears and cropped corners on their socket posts.
Jim C.